


HÓSANNA

by bigraine



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cults, Humanstuck, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23350429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigraine/pseuds/bigraine
Summary: proph • et/` präfət/noun1. it’s not just bloody mouth and shaking hands. it’s not just stomach aches or dripping sweat or burning with fever from heaven’s glow. you found another pile of dead locusts on the back porch, their small bodies glistening in the silver moonlight. you blacked out and woke up standing naked in the river again, your arms covered with ballpoint runes and all the rocks painted withhòsanna, hósannain your own blood. you kissed a boy, he had nightmares about cities falling into the sea for weeks.2. when you were little you liked to dream about meeting an angel, their soft white tunic, their soft eyes, their soft golden halo. but michael has wings made of barbed wire and a halo of star-fire and his lightning-strike voice makes cracks in your bedroom mirror every time he visits.3. they call you proclaimer. god’s holiness lives deep inside you like a sword in the gut. yours are rattled bones.
Relationships: Grand Highblood/The Signless | The Sufferer
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20





	HÓSANNA

_the whispers came to you in dreams, silver tongues delivering unto you indecipherable sermons of dizzying immaculate. your vision swims, and you can’t so much as shade your eyes from the image as you have no hands to cover your eyes; your earthly tethering left behind, the soul emancipated._

_gasps of breath cascade into each other and you wish you could understand. you see glimpses of people, of loved ones, of strangers, of war and violence, and a sob that makes no sound shudders through you. not just see, no, you_ **feel** _it, the pain, the suffering, the sheer elation and deep joy. lovers caressing; mother and child; curly hair; a woman with half of her face missing; the beat of feathery wings a thunder crack that shakes you to the core —_

_you let out a cry, and you wake to cool earth underneath and the sound of water._

You stir slowly, if only because you hate what comes next. Your bones crackle like the last logs on a dying fire as you push yourself up slowly, charcoal-burnt and heavy. Your skin is covered in sweat and it stings in the night air. You barely get into a sitting position before you’re doubled-over on your knees, retching and spitting up hot bile from your empty stomach.

When you think you’re done you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. For some reason it still surprises you when you fingers come away from your cheeks wet, your fingernails are _caked_ with dirt, and it’s only now that you notice the sloppy, purposeful drawings made all over your arms in mud.

You look around blearily, squinting in the light of the moon. You’re perched on the edge of the river not too far from your home. You sigh. _Not again,_ you think.

You attempt (and mostly fail) to keep from retching into the grass again (there’s black swirled into your spit and it makes you recoil) before you crawl pathetically over to the river bank, diving your hands into the freezing water and splashing your face. You scrub the marks from your arms with a well-worn scowl. You almost pass out as you’re learning over the water’s edge and you have to catch yourself, hands sinking deep into wet silt. You couldn’t give a shit if your teeth cracked from the way you grit them as you regain your balance and pull your hands free of the muck.

“Seems you be up and havin’ some troubles on this fineass night, brother.”

Your eyes are wide and unfocused behind a mess of damp curls as they snap up to find the source of the deep, familiar voice _(so much gentler than you remember, so much...softer?)_

He sits cross-legged on the opposite bank of the river, bare as the day he was born all but for the strings of beads that hang down his chest. Were you not already feverish, you might’ve had it in you to blush.

Even from this far away he’s a behemoth; even from here you can hear his voice crystal clear above the gentle babbling of the brook, a lilting melody in his words that feels so...

Intimately personal.

You can barely croak out his name. “K-Kurloz?” You can feel his eyes on you as you shakily stand to your feet, dusting dirt from your pajama pants. “What are you...”

“How could I dare to miss a lil motherfucker in the midst of his most pure, most glorious state of being?” That doesn’t really answer your question, and raises several more: How long has he been here? How much did he see? Fuck. Fuck, you haven’t let anyone bear witness since Rosa started letting you stay with her as a child. You don’t know what to do. You stand paralyzed in fear, swaying unsteady on your feet like a deer in headlights.

“No need to up n’ flip your precious little motherfuckin’ lid, son,” He shakes his head, unfurling himself to stand towering as Goliath himself. “Screw that shit back on tight. Ain’t no one tryin’ to out you.”

Kurkoz stands at the water’s edge, and it’s only now that you can find yourself able to focus on his eyes — they pierce through you, into you, make your soul ache with a homesickness you find honestly quite alarming. He hold his palms out wide, gesturing to you as if your presence was larger than that of the river separating you.

“I only wanted to share in your radiant mercy, Sunflower.”

His voice barely dances across your ears, breathless, and so deeply **_reverent_**.

Your legs move before your brain knows what you’re doing. The frigid water cuts like razors against your skin and it soaks through your clothes to make them heavy. You bare feet slip on rocks and you stumble a little in the water, but it doesn’t deter you as you slowly wade your way to meet him.

The waterline is up to your chest by the time you meet each in the middle. It barely comes up to above his hips.

The water is freezing, but your hand burns when you place it his outstretched palm.

“They speak to you, don’t they?” His low voice rumbles like that of a beast in close proximity, but there’s no less a sense of grave earnest in his tone as he holds your gaze. “They whisper into a brother’s empty noggin with all of the miraculous spectacles unbeknownst to the masses, no? All up and use a bitch’s slumbering corpse as their divine conduit, instructin’ a foolish ass in a language y’all up and don’t already got known,”

Your thick eyebrows furrow. “How did...?”

“‘Cuz,” He pulls you closer, rests his other giant hand carefully at your elbow as if you might break if he mishandled you even slightly, and his eyes soften with a pride you’ve never seen in Kurloz before. “A brother be hearin’ all the same noise.”

Your mouth falls open. “You...?” Your ears are ringing. Your voice falls hushed. _”You have the dreams too?”_

He tilts your chin up with a massive paw and closes your mouth with a little click of your teeth, but doesn’t move away after. You’re so close now that he swallows up nearly your entire vision, just him and the night sky.

“They told me about you. Told me we’d find each other one day, that the whole bitch would finally make sense.” He looms over you, and you’re so feverish that you lean into his hand. “You’re the missing link, little man. Clemency personified. The deliverer of righteous freedom these dumbass motherfuckers’ souls need.”

He steals the air from your lungs with only a brush of his lips against yours. “The Messiahs could get drunk from the sweet nectar of your breath alone.” 

He kisses you, and it feels like nothing the scriptures ever told you about.

Kurloz holds you like fragile glass and you grasp onto him like a life vest, your arms trembling slightly as they snake around his shoulders. He pulls you close against him and the feeling of his hand spanning across your back and running through your curly hair completely erases anything else that might’ve been on your mind.

His lips are rough with dried paint, but they feel so soft against yours, his tongue politely curious and warm in experimentation. You sigh, your eyes having fluttered closed, and it takes you a second to register it when your world starts tilting horizontal and he breaks the kiss to regard you with tenderness.

Your back hits water, and he lowers you slowly beneath it’s surface. The world goes quiet but for the bubble of the easy current and angels singing.

You come back up coughing what you’re sure is ichor and he rubs your back, his words calm yet resolute.

“Welcome to the holy freak show, brother.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting on AO3! Hope you guys enjoyed. I might turn this into more of a fic if anyone turns out to be interested. 
> 
> Inspired by the poem at the beginning that I found on pinterest and ended up talking about with a friend, lmao.


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